


Truce

by Trojie



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:07:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin has both the men he wants, but he's not happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truce

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a porn-battle with Lola Feist, and beta-read by same, because she is a sweetie. The idea was to take the same setup and write it with different tones - mine was angst.  
> (Read hers [here](http://lolafeist.livejournal.com/562261.html))

Merlin has been sleeping with Gwaine for five years by the time Gwen and Lancelot run away together. In this time, Arthur has been married for three years. Longer than either of these is the length of time Merlin has spent keeping his hands chaste on Arthur's body and his thoughts deliberately out of Arthur's bed.

Gwaine knows this, of course, which is why after Arthur makes the court aware of the reason for his queen's absence, and then leaves, stony-faced, he tells Merlin to go after him.

'He needs you,' Gwaine says, roughly. 'Who else does he have? Go.'

So Merlin goes.

He doesn't bother to knock - he never has before. Arthur is over by the window, leaning on the sill and staring out. He doesn't look up as Merlin enters.

'I wondered how long it would take you to follow me,' he says dully.

'Are you all right?' Merlin asks, wishing he knew a better way to say it.

'I should have seen it coming,' Arthur says. 'I knew what they were doing, I just never thought they'd leave.'

'You thought they'd be happy to sneak around forever?'

Arthur shrugs. 'I suppose? I don't know. Did I treat her badly?'

Merlin honestly doesn't know. Not in any physical sense, certainly. 'I don't think so,' he says.

'Then why?'

 _They ran for love,_ Merlin thinks. _They ran because it was better to break your heart once and for all than to drag it along on a string forever._ 'Maybe they thought it was best,' he says weakly. 'Some things have to be done, whether they hurt or not. Whether they're stupid or not.'

Arthur has no response, just turns back to the window. Merlin shuffles closer. 'Arthur,' he asks cautiously, 'what do you need?' He means wine, food, a bath, a massage, some sleep … but probably wine.

Merlin would bring up all the wine in the cellars if he thought it would help Arthur feel better for a while, but Arthur turns to him, and his eyes are dark, with darker circles underneath them, and his bottom lip is bitten red, and he says, 'You,' in a cracked voice, and reaches out.

Merlin can no more deny him than he can hold back the tides. Arthur's mouth is soft, and the taste of it tells Merlin that Arthur has already been at the cellars today. Stripping him off is a familiar, gentle routine - falling into bed with him is new. Merlin lets Arthur take what he wants, expects a certain lack of care, but Arthur reins his anger in, and his sorrow, and just holds them together, slick, sliding, with his eyes closed tight.

Afterwards, Arthur falls asleep at last. Merlin knows he should stay, that he must be there in the morning or Arthur will believe Merlin regrets this, but he has to see Gwaine.

Gwaine is awake in his chambers, fiddling with the neck of a half-full wineskin at his desk.

'I'm sorry,' Merlin says, closing the door behind him. Gwaine will have guessed why he didn't return after nightfall. Gwaine is not an idiot. 'He needed a friend.'

'He needed you,' Gwaine says, and his expression is that hard, cheerful one that he thinks masks his sadnesses. 'I won't stand in your way, Merlin. Go back to him. I'm glad for our time together, but-'

'But nothing,' Merlin says, iron bands squeezing his heart. 'I'm not finished with you, Gwaine. God, never think it.' He doesn't say _I love you_ , but he means it.

Gwaine looks uncertain. 'But Arthur-'

'Arthur and I …' Merlin falters. 'It's different, Gwaine. I swear.'

'Is this the only time you'll go to him?' Gwaine asks. 'Or does he now command your body as well as your heart and your loyalty?'

'He commands all of me, he always has,' Merlin says, willing Gwaine to understand. 'You've always known that, from the very beginning.'

Gwaine looks at Merlin then. Merlin is aware that he is newly-come from another man's bed and looks it, all barefoot on the rush-covered stone floor, with breeches that are badly tied, and his shirt awry, and he wouldn't blame Gwaine for telling him to leave and never come back … but he hopes. Oh, he hopes.

After a long moment, Gwaine sighs. 'Will he share you?' he asks, his voice barely above a whisper. 'Gods help me, but I cannot deny you, and I know how much you love him. But will he share you?'

'I love _you_ , too,' Merlin says, because it is all he can think to say.

Gwaine kisses him then, one hand buried in his hair, the other curving over his hipbone, as desperate as he kissed in the early days, when he was banished and their times together were limited to nights spent in insalubrious taverns. Then he pushes Merlin away. 'Go back to him,' he says, roughly. 'But ask. If you're willing, and he will let you, then …'

'I love you,' says Merlin again, reaches in for another kiss, but Gwaine turns him about.

When Merlin slips back into Arthur's bed, Arthur barely stirs.

***

Three months later, and they are past the point of Arthur and Gwaine trying to kill each other with wooden practice swords in the name of 'friendly rivalry', and they are past the politicking of whose sheets Merlin will warm any given night, for they've given in, and now all three of them sleep in Merlin's bed, in the palatial quarters Arthur had the seneschal assign him as fit for his role as advisor and Court Sorceror. Merlin has to magically widen the bed several times, however, to accommodate for the fact that neither Arthur nor Gwaine wishes to touch the other more than is necessary.

He has them both. He should be happy.

Instead, he wonders if this is a little how Gwen felt. Torn in half, never knowing whose toes he may be treading on. At least Merlin's arrangement is open, and no lies are being told, no secrecy adhered to. In that at least, he is a little better off than Gwen. But every time he wishes to touch one of them, he feels he has to touch the other as well, as if they keep score.

He has no wish to play favourites, but they assume he is, and they each assume the other is his preference. He wishes they would love each other as they love him. He wishes they would at least be friends, not rivals.

He wishes they could see how they are together, on the rare occasions that the intoxication of touch overwhelms them and they forget to be careful and each keep their hands only on Merlin. He wishes they knew what it does to him, to see them kiss, to see Arthur with one hand fisted tight in Gwaine's hair or Gwaine with his fingers clutching Arthur's wrists.

'You're not happy,' Gwaine says one morning. They're sitting in the herb garden - Merlin is picking valerian and feverfew to dry on the racks in Gaius's old workroom, which is his workroom now.

Merlin looks up at him. 'Pardon me?'

'You're not happy,' Gwaine repeats.

'I'm happy,' Merlin says. 'Why don't you think I'm happy?'

Gwaine cups Merlin's cheek in his hand. 'If you were happy, you'd smile,' he says. 'Something is eating at you, and I want to know what it is.'

A shadow cuts across them. 'Agreed,' Arthur says, stepping into view. 'You're going to tell us what the matter is, and then we'll fix it.'

He sits himself down on Merlin's other side, and yet again, Merlin's torn - he can't face one without presenting his back to the other. He gets up, rather than have to make that choice. 'I'm busy,' he says.

Arthur stands up and pulls Merlin close to him. 'I'm the king - I'm declaring you without duties until we sort this out.'

'Listen to the princess. He's right for once,' Gwaine says, laughing a little. For once, Arthur doesn't scowl, he just elbows Gwaine lightly in the ribs. Merlin pulls his hands free again, and steps back. They're actually standing shoulder to shoulder now, and Merlin feels threatened, wary of this abnormal alignment.

'I have to go,' he says, and really does leave. He looks back through the gate to the walled garden as he goes, though, and sees Arthur and Gwaine arguing. He wishes he'd just smiled and let them be happy. They wouldn't understand why he isn't.

***

Merlin reinstates himself in the tiny bed in the back room of his workroom that night. He assumes that two things could happen; either Arthur and Gwaine will sleep in his bed together and bicker and wait for him to turn up, or they'll bicker (they always bicker) and leave for their own, completely unslept-in-for-months beds. Either way, he's with neither of them. It's even.

***

The next morning, at sparring practice for the knights, Arthur and Gwaine are at each other's throats, to the point where Leon has his hand on his sword, looking like he might get between them. Eventually they stop, sweating, panting, and Merlin breaks.

He strides onto the field and grabs them by a shoulder each. 'Come with me,' he says, and starts dragging.

He drags them all the way back to his rooms. 'I'm sick of this,' he says, wound up beyond all belief. 'You want to know why I'm not happy? It's _this_. It's this stupid competition. I can't do this any more, do you hear me? I want both of you. I love both of you. But if you don't even like each other, this can't work.'

He steps back, and looks at them, breathing hard and staring at him. 'You decide,' he says, quieter this time. He knows what he has to do. 'Either you two want each other, as well as me, or we go our separate ways now. But I won't choose.'

Arthur eyes Gwaine. 'Perhaps we can compromise-' he says.

Merlin almost growls in his throat. He doesn't _understand_. 'I don't want a compromise,' Merlin says, begging them to realise what he means. 'I don't want negotiations and jealousy, and having to be careful around you.'

Gwaine and Arthur both open their mouths to argue, but Merlin doesn't want to hear it. He shakes his head. 'I've got things to do,' he says. 'When you've made your decision, send for me. I'll be in my workroom.'

He walks out, shutting the door behind him.

Maybe _he_ should have chosen, before this. Maybe it would have been the lesser of all possible evils if he'd let Gwaine finish with him the night Gwen left, or if he'd not gone after Arthur at all. Maybe everyone would have been happier. But he'd thought it could work. He'd thought, if they can fight together, they can be together in other ways as well.

It looks like he thought wrong.

***

A maid comes for Merlin in the mid-afternoon. Her face is pink and flushed, but he puts it down to the distance between Arthur's chambers, where she tells him the king requires his presence, and Merlin's workrooms. After all, it's not as if Arthur ever told servants to take their time with his messages.

By the time Merlin reaches the corridor outside Arthur's room, though, he knows exactly why the colour was riding high on the maid's cheeks.

The door is unlocked and unbarred. In fact, it's ajar. Merlin goes in and shuts, locks, and bars it behind him with shaking hands, before actually looking at the bed.

When he does look at the bed, it's shaking. Arthur's voice rings out over the sound of Gwaine's strained breathing. 'The thing about competition,' the king says, and then he grunts, gasps, and Merlin, coming closer, sees that Arthur is straddling Gwaine's hips, rocking back onto him, his knees digging into the knight's ribcage. 'The thing about competition, is that the point isn't to win,' he finishes. He's braced on his arms over Gwaine. His eyes are shut, and sweat is beading on his forehead.

Gwaine, though, when Merlin edges ever closer, is looking directly at him.His eyes are dark, dilated all the way open, and his mouth is slack and kiss-bruised. There are red marks on his torso that look to be from fingers and mouth, that would probably match some of the fading bruises that decorate Merlin's own skin.

'We can't be friends,' Gwaine says, his hips snapping inexorably. 'But we can be this, Merlin, we can be what you need, we promise. This is a truce, not a compromise.'

'We can't change who we are,' Arthur grits out, little tiny juddering pauses between each word as he shoves himself down and around and against Gwaine. 'We clash, and we always will. And we need that. I need to know he'll argue with me. I need knights who don't just bow down to my authority, not when it matters.'

Gwaine is gasping now. 'It doesn't mean we hate each other, Merlin. And we love you. And we want you to- to-' He can't finish - Arthur is shaking above him, grinding down, making noises Merlin has never heard from him before. Gwaine's eyes roll back under fluttering eyelids, and then Arthur is slumped, sweat-drenched and pliant, over him.

The distance between Merlin and the bed is suddenly non-existent - Merlin has to touch, and he doesn't know how he got there, but suddenly Gwaine and Arthur are within fingers' reach.

Arthur reaches out, dragging his face out of the hollow of Gwaine's throat, and bringing Merlin's hand to his mouth, kissing the knuckles in a courtly manner.

'We aren't friends,' he says, hoarse and warm. 'But we're lovers now. _This_ is our decision, Merlin.'


End file.
